*This episode originally aired on the Robin Hood Radio Network on Friday, February 27th*

This episode features the works of several Bard students who participated in Professor Drew Thompson’s Radio Africa class in fall 2014. Students were tasked with making audio essays that examine the role that radio has played in contemporary African history. The result is a four-part radio series called “Radio Africa: Broadcast History,” featuring essays on a broad range of topics, places and styles, some radio-related, some not as much, grouped under the themes of: Speaking and listening, or narratives in sound; Agitating Radio; Media and Identity; and Profiles in advocacy.

Part I: Jessica Zaccagnino- Truth Commission Radio

In her podcast, Jessica Zaccagnino ’17 examines the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (as well as it’s counterpart in Argentina) and explores how truth and national imaginings can be broadcast by political figures.

Mandela, Nelson. Nelson Mandela: The Struggle Is My Life : His Speeches and Writings Brought Together with Historical Documents and Accounts of Mandela in Prison by Fellow-prisoners 1944-1990. 3rd ed. Bellville: Mayibuye Books, 1994.

Music credit: Sam Cooke, “Chain Gang” (excerpt)

Part III: Jackson Rollings- Neo Muyanga and William Kentridge: Reconstituting History and Language through Artistic Practice

Jackson Rollings’ ’15 piece features South African musician Neo Muyanga, who shares his thoughts on the arts in Africa. Neo visited Bard College last Fall to talk with Professor Thompson’s class and perform at Bard hall—both conversation and performance are sampled, in part, in Jackson’s podcast.

In the final quarter of our episode, Ilana Dodelson 15′ examines African oral tradition as a place where historiography and artistry collide and combine. The works of South Africa poet/visual artist Dineo Seshee Bopape and African-American visual artist Kara Walker are featured throughout.

Vansina, Jan. “Once upon a Time: Oral Traditions as History in Africa” in The Historian and the World of the Twentieth Century Vol. 100, No. 2, (Spring, 1971) pp. 442-468. MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Accessed Online. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024011

Nelson Mandela’s sketch depicts a view of Table Mountain through the bars of a prison cell on Robben Island. In fact Table Mountain is not visible from the prison cell window. This sketch is courtesy of Belgravia Gallery.

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